


(somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond)

by seventhstar



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Born To Shine Zine, Character Study, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 06:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15042512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: [for Born To Shine, a Yuuri Katsuki themed zine]On his last day in Hasetsu, Yuuri goes for a run by the water. His sneakers slap the pavement; the wind blows through his hair; there are gulls crying.





	(somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond)

On his last day in Hasetsu, Yuuri goes for a run by the water. His sneakers slap the pavement; the wind blows through his hair; there are gulls crying.

Tomorrow, he will travel across two continents, and when he lands he will be a stranger in a strange land, a resident in a city he’s only seen in pictures and through the windows at the airport.

And tomorrow, he will be in Viktor’s arms again, and his second season with Viktor as his coach will begin.

Yuuri has mixed feelings about new beginnings; as much as he wants to shed the painful detritus of the past, he can never quite shake the feeling that his reinventions are worse every time. As if he’s copying a copy of a copy and every subsequent page is a little fuzzier. There’s no changing the core of him, and Yuuri sometimes feels like the reformation is nothing more than dressing a pig in silk.

Being himself in Japan is easy; he knows how to be a son, how to be a brother. He knows how to greet the old ladies who call out to him as he runs by, what to say to the early morning fisherman, how to give tourists directions to the inn, how to sink into the onsen and melt like a ice cream that’s been left out too long.

The Yuuri of Detroit, too, was a known quantity: a little more impulsive than his Japanese counterpart, maybe, a little slower to speak when he had to express himself in vague and unfamiliar English.

And then there is Viktor’s Yuuri—a wild, unpredictable maverick who does things like break world records and grind half-naked on strangers and fall madly in love. Yuuri has no idea who this man is, or where he’s been hiding for the past twenty-four years.

In the evening, Yuuri wanders through the house, taking photographs of innocuous things on a whim; the crack in the wall that’s never been fixed, the new stovetop his mother bought his father last year, Mari’s bedroom with the lights off and the furniture just shadows in a dark room. He sends each picture to Viktor as he takes it, and Viktor responds with unbelievable enthusiasm: _Wow! Amazing! I miss Hasestu. I miss you._

And then, he adds _we’ll visit; I’ll be with you;_ he appends a photograph of the shrine he is assembling in his spare room for Vicchan.

Yuuri visits the original one last time before he leaves for the airport. At least in St. Petersburg he’ll have Makkachin. He packs Vicchan’s favorite toy in his bag. On the plane, he dozes. He might have dreamed; he doesn’t remember.

When Yuuri was a teenager he had a long-running fantasy about Viktor Nikiforov and how they would meet. About how Yuuri would win a gold medal (or a silver medal), break Viktor’s world record (or almost break it), and then get to shake Viktor’s hand on the podium as they stood side by side. And Viktor would smile at him. And maybe Viktor would say something like _good job_ or _call me Vitya_ _or see you around,_ and then Yuuri’s heart would pound and his face would heat and—

He’d wake up, tangled in his sheets, and vaguely ashamed.

New Yuuri has no compunctions about dreams of Viktor, or daydreams of Viktor, or elaborate fantasies of domestic life with Viktor. He’s not afraid that Viktor won’t live up to them; Viktor always surpasses Yuuri’s expectations. No, what Yuuri fears is that he’s still Detroit Yuuri or Hasetsu Yuuri on the inside, and what he’s fought for will slip away like water through his outstretched hand.

The sound of the landing gear unfolding reminds Yuuri of a coffin shutting.

He pulls up his surgical mask and passes through the airport unnoticed. He walks faster and faster, dragging his bag behind him until it’s being lifted off the ground as he breaks out into a run. The exit is there; Yuuri can’t read Russian, but he knows the look of families waiting to be reunited.

And Viktor is there, smiling at him, and he says _Yuuri!_ And Yuuri’s heart pounds and his face heats and he is swept away in Viktor’s arms, and this is better than any dream, because when he opens his eyes Viktor, disheveled with rain in his hair, remains.

They stop by the rink for a tour. It’s too big, too crowded. Yuuri only feels comfortable there with his eyes closed. Then they drive back to the apartment— _our apartment_ —and Yuuri sets foot in what will someday be called home. It’s too white, too clean; the bookshelves, where volumes have been stacked and wedged into every sliver of space, are the only proof that there are inhabitants.

It took months and months for Yuuri to shed his homesickness in Detroit, and unfurl himself enough to enjoy it. To really taste Ciao Ciao’s cooking and ride the city bus without thinking about it and arrive at the rink without trying to go in through the wrong door. How long will it take, in St. Petersburg?

There is a familiar smell in the air; Viktor produces, with a flourish, two steaming bowls of homemade katsudon. It is mediocre at best, but while Yuuri eats it, he looks around the apartment and begins to see things. Viktor’s coat, thrown over the back of the couch alongside Yuuri’s own. Makkachin, curled up just the way Vicchan used to, begging him for scraps. There’s space on top of the bookshelves, if Yuuri wanted to add his books to the collection. The gleam of the sunlight through the windows is pale yellow; it washes out Viktor, makes him look human.

Today, in this place, Yuuri does not know who he is.

Maybe he will tomorrow.

On his first day in St. Petersburg, Yuuri goes for a run by the water. His sneakers slap the pavement; the winds blows through his hair; there are gulls crying.


End file.
